Play Ball

And we're off on another baseball season.

In the 1987 issue, Monika Schnarre and Kathy Ireland broke out the ballcaps of the then-recent World Series rivals, the Red Sox (Monika) and the Mets (Kathy).I just found out that Monika, Canada's first supermodel, was just 15(!) when she posed for her one-and-only appearance.

Seems like most SI models nowadays make their first appearances at 18, so I'm used to ogling women in the issue who can't drink. Occasionally, even one who can't vote (Paulina Porizkova was 17 during her first shoot). But a girl who can't drive? That sits wrong with me.

There were only two shots of her in the issue, this baseball one and another in a modest one-piece. She never appeared again.

She has a couple years on me, so my 13-year-old eyes found legitimate purchase on her in '87. But revisiting the shot today? That's a kid.

She went on to have steady work as a model and an actress, and a cursory look at her public life suggests that she's pretty well adjusted, so being thrust into this world so young doesn't seem to have screwed her up or anything. But man. That kind of surprised me to discover.